Everyone else seems to have everything in place

[Saft1980]

Hello all, this is my first post. I feel like i have lots of issues going on in my life. Most of them seem to revolve around my own thoughts. I know i shouldn’t think certain ways or believe certain things but i keep on doing it. I fill my head with frustration and Anxiety and worry. I generally just do my best to avoid feeling like a total loser. Everyone around me seems to have so much more of their life in place, house, family, kids, job, etc. If they don’t have it then they seems to have so much more confidence in themselves to just go after it and make it happen, while i sit down in the hope that things might magically improve for me. Sometimes I kind of hope that somebody will come along and save me from myself. In other words, believe in me, even though I don’t believe in myself.

 I guess the question is, am i just being a wuss? I know this is a confronting way to look at it, but i also don’t want to pull my own punches. Is it fair or do I have the right to stress over my life without knowing what to do. Maybe i do have the right to feel stressed and anxious if i have problems that i don’t know how to solve. I also think if i tried harder i would be able to find the solutions to the problems that matter most. It’s just the way i feel at the moment. I’m tired of not feeling strong enough to deal with life.

[Chicken_Wings]

Welcome Saft,

It is totally ok to have fears and anxieties. But you shouldn't have to put up with feeling like they have taken over your life. Everyone has fears, I would hazard a guess that even your friends who have it together have fears. They just have a different way of dealing with it than you.
I too wish someone would just fix the things I don't like about my life, you're not alone in that. I see friends with husbands and babies and siblings and their own house and I look at my own life and think "this isn't where I was meant to be now. I was meant to be where they are. This isn't meant to be my life".

There is an element of dealing with having anxiety and depression which is finding the strength to just want to kick it's butt. Some days, you can't, but on the days when you can you have to take all the strength you can muster and just fight.

You are not a wuss, you are a person who just needs to find her fight.

Have you talked to your GP? If you aren't on medication then maybe this would be a place to start?

[Zeal]

Hi Saft,

Welcome to the forum! You are definitely not a wuss! Besides, that's a vague and unhelpful word!

Having these thoughts is frustrating. I've had issues in the past with negative thoughts circulating in my mind, which I couldn't deal with. For me, one of the main issues was that my brain doesn't produce enough serotonin, the neurotransmitter responsible for mood and sleep. I am still on antidepressant medication (an SSRI) for this, and I also ensure my lifestyle is good for my mental health. I try to get seven hours sleep a night, I eat a variety of nutritious foods, spend time with family and friends, have a close and trusting relationship with my boyfriend, and I try to keep organised with uni. My relationships are strong and positive, but I'm not always in control of uni and sleep. No one has everything under control, even if it might seem that way.

Please try not to think of yourself as a loser.  Until about 2 or 3 years ago, I usually thought of myself as a loser, which enhanced my social awkwardness. I just needed time and personal experiences (hardship, in my case) to start developing some resilience and self-belief. I am still not an overly confident person, but I now believe in my own abilities and potential. A major positive change for me was realising I want to study psychology.  I started doing another degree, and was unhappy and felt overwhelmed and incompetent. I now have one year left of study, and I recently got offered training for a job where I will act as a behaviour therapist for young kids with Autism. Just three years ago I was lonely, unhappy, unconfident and lacked motivation. Now, because I have supportive friends, have worked out what I am interested in, and so on - I feel so much more content!

Think about what you really want to do, rather than what you think you should be doing or are expected to do. It's important to find work and/or an activity you enjoy, have friends who understand and respect you, have safe and comfortable living arrangements (whether this is at home, alone, or with flatmates etc.), and to know that not having kids or a partner is perfectly acceptable. I know this is easier to say than to think or believe.

I think you would benefit from talking to your GP. They can refer you to a counsellor or psychologist, if that is something you would consider.

I hope something I've said has been useful.

Best wishes,

SM

[Chicken_Wings]

Welcome Saft,

I think everyone has fears. Just because some friends seem to have it all together, it doesn't mean they don't have fears. They probably do, they just deal with them in a different way than you.
I feel the same sometimes. I see friends with their husbands and their babies and the house that they own and then look at my life and think "this isn't where I was meant to be by now. I was meant to be where they are. This isn't the life I was meant to have." Then I found out that one of my friends was on anti depressants too. It was a bit of a reminder that just because you can't see it, everyone has their own pressures.

But part of depression and anxiety is finding your fight. There are days when you will feel like you can't do it. But there will be other days where you feel like you have all the strength in the world. On those days, take all your strength and kick depression and anxiety in the butt. Make lists, make plans, be productive, complete tasks. Do the things that will mean that at the end of the day you can look back and be pleased with yourself.
It's like creating currency for the next time you feel down. You can look at this good day and say to yourself "yes, but I did this..."

Have you seen your GP about how you feel? Because you do not have to put up with feeling this way. Medication might be of help to you.

[Saft1980]

Hi Chicken Wings,

Thanks for your reply. Took something from your advice on fighting the fight when you have the strength and be a more accepting and forgiving when life is a little harder to handle. I know we all go through tough times. I guess I would just like to get to a place where the tough times are a little less tough, a little less frequent and a little less enduring. 

Thanks again.

Jesse.

[Saft1980]

Hi SM,

I’m interested in further discussing personal hardships to develop resilience and self belief. You don’t have to give me specific details. I’m just interested in what happened and how it affected you. I’m wondering if I just haven’t experience a great personal hardship and if this has caused me to not be as resilient as I need to be.

Thanks for your reply.

Jesse.

[Chicken_Wings]

You know the funny thing about the good days, is that the more you take advantage of them, the more they seem to appear! 

Remember that depression doesn't discriminate. You don't have to have had a horrible life for it to effect you. It almost sounds as though you feel guilty for how you feel. 

If you want to create some self belief, have you considered finding something that is a challenge, or scares you a little bit and doing it anyway? Maybe learning something new, or doing something that you think people wouldn't expect of you? For example, a friend of mine decided to do some classes in iron forging! I'm not kidding, like with a big fire and a hammer and hot metal. She goes to her classes every now and then and learns to do something that nobody would have expected of a young woman. And, at the end of it, she's created something, so she gets a sense of accomplishment. 

[Saft1980]

Hi Chicken Wings, There was something in what you said just then that jumped out at me. “I feel guilty for the way I feel.” This just seem to cut true for me. More accurately, I feel guilty for feeling bad. If i have a bad day or I’m having a bad moment I find it a real struggle to just wear it and accept it. I think that i do feel guilty about it and this only compounds the problem. I think this is something that I can learn to be more conscious of.

Thanks for the tip of trying something new, I’ll think about that some more.

Jesse.

[Zeal]

Hi Saft,

You don't necessarily need to experience personal hardship to become resilient. That's just the way it turned out for me. I was hospitalised for two months in 2012 with an atypical eating disorder. Seeing other seemingly normal and lovely people struggling with their mental health in that ward really changed the way I think. Without that experience, I may not be studying psychology now. I look back on that experience as a turning point (though a rough one). I am thankful that I am now healthy again, and that the course of my life was not negatively and irrevocably altered by that period of illness.

I hope you can build on your resilience, in your own way

Best wishes,

SM